Buying a used car is a tricky decision because there are too many things that can go wrong and too many problems that we do not even know exist with them. When it comes to the physical state of the vehicle, it can be easily checked by looking at the car or asking someone more competent to do that for us, but we need to be aware that there can be many financial and legal problems that cannot be seen in that way. If you still do not understand how dangerous it can be not to check the car’s background, well, we will just tell you that it is possible to lose it as it is repossessed. That literally means that you will pay for the vehicle and soon be left without them. It is important to perform some serious investigations to avoid any legal and financial problems, and the best ones are PPSR and REVs checks which can tell us a lot about the used car we want to buy based on few numbers. If the REVs check is something you need, but do not know where to perform the reliable one, check here, and see if the car you want to buy or already bought is legal and ready for the drive. On the other side, if you want to know more about this check and why it is necessary to perform it, continue reading, and we will try to explain it.

What are PPSR and REVs checks?

It is impossible to understand anything if we first do not know the difference between PPSR and REVs checks. The best idea is to finish all the checks before the decision to buy the used car, but let’s see the main difference between them. PPSR can be done throughout Australia, and the only exception is the middle of the desert. PPSR is an abbreviation for Personal Property Securities Register, and it is not the check that we perform only for vehicles because it deals with property and other legal problems. The PPSR reports provide us registration details and many other crucial data like the information if the car that we want to buy is stolen or not. The check that we will explain further is REVs, and although these two have similar issues to deal with, one of the differences is that it is a more local version, and it can be done pretty quickly. It is an abbreviation for the Australian Register of Encumbered Vehicles, and it deals with vehicle problems.

Why run REVs check?

1. You will see if there are financial issues

Once you decide to run this check, look carefully if there is encumbrance in the report because if there is, it is not a good thing. To tell it simply, the existence of encumbrance shows us that there is a debt that is connected to the car we want to buy, which means that we should search for another one. This debt is usually connected with some kind of loan, and it can lead to repossession of the car, and in that way, we will end up without money and a car at the same time.

2. Checking if the car is stolen

Buying a stolen car is another situation where we can end up without our money and car, but even more. If the vehicle has this status, it can be pretty challenging to explain to the police that you are not a part of the theft, and you just bought that car. Well, it really does not sound pretty convincing, right? REVs check can tell us if the vehicle has the stolen status record, no matter by regular theft, stolen plates, engine theft pieces of information, or VIN records because it is all included.

3. It shows all the details about the car and registration

Although it looks pretty basic to check the registration and vehicle details, many people simply forget to do that or trust the previous owner too much, so they do not think about that, but it is never a good idea. It is a much better option to run the check on your own and see if the things are how they look before the final decision to buy the car. The REVs report will contain everything, from the year of the production to a model of the vehicle and VIN to much other important information. It also will contain the registration details like its expiration, plate numbers, and details about the state where it is registered.

What is VIN?

Since we explained everything else, the only remaining thing is VIN that we mentioned a couple of times before, but without a proper explanation. Many of you are probably familiar with this term, but we will tell it once more for those who are not sure what it means. VIN represents an individual seventeen numbers serial key, and every vehicle in Australia needs to have it. The most usual places where you can find this number are where the windshields meet the dashboard or on the door on the driver’s side, and in some cases, it can be somewhere else, but it needs to be there. If there is no VIN number, it is a sign that something is not right because it is the number that allows us to run the REVs check in the first place, so if there is no VIN, there is no REVs check too.

The bottom line

Once the decision to buy a used vehicle is made, it is crucial to run some checks to make sure that you will not regret it. A used vehicle can bring too many problems to you if you are not careful enough, and it can cost you a lot of time and nerves to solve them all, and it will be even worse when you realize that you could avoid all of them. Since the REVs check is not expensive, and it is not necessary to wait long for the result, there are no excuses not to run it.